OWL3 Word Lists for Playing Competitive Scrabble®

Although you can see some word lists here, you can make your own
lists of Scrabble® words using Mike's
WHAT program, which is available at no cost.

Included on this web site are some lists of words of
particular aid to folks learning useful words for competitive
play in North America and other places using the same lexicon, such
as Israel. All these words are found in the
"Third Official Tournament and Club Word List" or "OWL3"
(available only to club/tourney members at the
NASPA web site).
This book is the only reference for words played which are of lengths
between 2 and 15.

The Dictionary Committee of
NASPA, in conjunction with
Merriam-Webster,
updated both the Official Scrabble® Players Dictionary (OSPD) and
the Official Word List (OWL). The
Fifth Edition of the OSPD
is now being sold to the public,
and the updated OWL, currently OWL3, is available to members of NASPA.
Competitive play in clubs and tournaments switched to using
these lists in April, 2015.

The
OSPD5
is sold in book stores, but since it is intended for school and recreational
use it is missing the swear words and ethnic slurs which were present in
previous editions. The OWL continues to include those nasty words.
The OWL3 contains some words which are not nasty and are not
included in the new OSPD5, especially trademark names, such as
KLEENEX.

Unfortunately, these two word sources are not otherwise
consistent with one another, as had been the case for the earlier editions
of these books. How or whether this is will be resolved has not been announced,
as of June, 2015. There are many words acceptable for official competitive play
in North America which are missing from the OSPD5.

A very good one-page two-sided "Cheat Sheet"
for getting started with Scrabble® word knowledge is the first option at:
http://www.cross-tables.com/cs.php.
Print this page on a color printer if you want to see the new OWL3 words
in red ink. The second option uses black ink for the document.